Uttarakhand Congress SEVA DAL

BRIEF HISTORY OF CONGRESS SEVA DAL

In 1923, following the Flag Satyagraha at Nagpur, many activists of the Congress were arrested and sentenced to prison. Unable to tolerate the rigors of prison, most of them tendered written apologies to the colonial authorities. However, members of the Hubli Seva Mandal, founded by N S Hardikar refused to yield.

This uncompromising stance gained the attention of the Congress' national leadership that had gathered in Nagpur to participate in the satyagraha. It was here that the idea of establishing an organization of volunteers to combat the Raj was born. At the Kakinada session of the Congress in 1923, a board under Dr. N S Hardikar was constituted for setting up the Dal. The Seva Dal was established as the Hindustani Seva Mandal on January 1, 1924. According to the resolution at Kakinada, the Dal was to work under the supervision of the Congress party's working committee. Jawaharlal Nehru was its first president. The Dal faced much initial opposition from Congressmen, who were opposed to the idea of creating a militia like organization in the Congress, seeing it as a threat to the idea of civilian dominance and as being inconsistent with the idea of non-violence. Umabai Kundapur was the founding president of the women's wing of the Dal. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was closely associated with the organization, especially in the 1930s.

In 1931, the Congress Working Committee decided to rename the Hindustani Seva Dal as the Congress Seva Dal, making it the central volunteer organization of the Congress. Every province was to have a general officer commanding the provincial Seva Dal. The organization also focused specifically on three categories of people: children, adolescents and adults. All Seva Dal members were required to take an oath, which, among other things, required them to stay aloof from political activity in the Congress.

The task of imparting training and organizing volunteers was given to the Dal in 1938, which was then headquartered in the Karnatak district of the Bombay presidency. Under Hardikar, an Academy for physical training was established and training camps established at several places across India. During the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Seva Dal played an stellar role in enrolling new members in the Congress, organizing activities like picketing and in arming the party with an organized but peaceful militia. The significance of the Dal in the Civil Disobedience Movement can be gauged from the fact that in 1934, when the Movement came to an end and the colonial authorities lifted the ban on the Congress and its organizations, they continued to proscribe the Dal.

IDEOLOGY AND POLICY

Historically, the party has supported and advocated in favor of farmers, laborers, worker's unions (Labor unions), and religious and ethnic minorities; it has also advocated in favor of the regulation of business and finance, and has looked favorably upon the levying of income taxes. However, in recent years the party has turned towards centrist economic and social democratic policies. Today, the INC advocates neo-liberal policies including populism, social liberalism, secularism and free enterprise with government regulations such as public–private partnership (PPP) model. As a political party, the INC has publicized its intentions to do all it can to reduce poverty, illiteracy and strongly supports the weaker section of the society.

SOCIAL POLICY

Social policy of the INC is officially based upon the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya (upliftment of all sections of the society.) In particular INC emphasizes upon policies to improve the lives of the economically underprivileged and socially dis-privileged sections of society. This includes publicizing employment generation efforts for the rural population (through schemes such as National Rural Employment Generation Scheme) etc. The party supports the somewhat controversial concept of family planning with birth control but hasn't overtly supported elective abortion (i.e. Gender-Selective abortion)[citation needed], which would be controversial and dangerous as certain groups (e.g. Feminists) could consider that to be sexist or insensitive and the INC wouldn't have been able to survive under such pressure. The INC supports the highly controversial 'Reservation' system (i.e. reserving jobs and other things for underprivileged factions of society) which could lead to an inexperienced poorer person getting a job instead of an experienced wealthier person, though it could also be vice versa.

ECONOMIC POLICY

Initially and for a long time, the economic policy of the INC was centered on the public sector and aimed at establishing a "socialistic pattern of society". However, after the recent adoption of Economically Liberal policies started by Manmohan Singh the then Finance Minister [citation needed] in the early 1990s, the economic policy of INC has been changed somewhat and it is now adopted free market policies, though at the same time it is in favor of taking a cautious approach when it comes to liberalizing the economy claiming it is to help ensure that the weaker sectors aren't affected to hard by the changes that come with liberalization.

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